Podcast Recap: Chris Mockford on The Future of Content Marketing In Asia

As part of a series called Marketing Mojo, Chris joined show presenter & producer Maya Tan to talk about some of the growth and trends taking place in content marketing, particularly in Asia. He then went on to share some best practices and case studies with listeners.

As a quick recap to the available podcast (below), here were some of the themes covered:

The Rise of Native Advertising in Asia

In a recent survey conducted by research firm Warc and content marketing agency King Content, it was revealed that marketers are increasing their spend on native advertising. Largely, with a focus on using it to drive brand awareness and engagement.

One-third of respondents were noted as already having tested the medium as part of their marketing mix, and 61% were likely to consider native in their future plans.

However, a lack of strategy and effective data to measure return on investment (ROI) remain major hurdles that the industry must tackle in order to propel native advertising alongside other platforms.

In Malaysia, another report from Warc discovered multinational brands such as Petronas, Shell, Nestlé, and Unilever are deploying native ads to connect with audiences in the territory.

Increase in Content Marketing Spends

An increasing number of marketers in Asia are looking for strong content to support their media strategies which now commands a greater slice of the marketing budget mix.

Brands are starting to see there is more value in owned media properties and developing loyal audiences. The ability to control their own content rather than build it on someone else’s land has begun proving more valuable to them.

In Asia, you can be part of a global hub, but it’s extremely challenging to own that asset (and it’s slow to get your content up), so I encourage you to build your own site, or at least build your regional site within the global hub. Too many marketers in Asia feel powerless within the global business set-up. We need to change that because while global content is relevant, local content is when you really see an impact. Of course, it’s expensive to do multi-language sites, so start with English first if this is an issue.

There are a number of other reasons for that, but a big part of their failure whittles down to lack of a clear strategy, ownership, commitment, and C-level buy-in.

Even still, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute, Joe Pulizzi, reported the average business in Asia last year spent about 25% of its marketing budget on content marketing creation and distribution.

That number is expected to double within the next decade.

Visual & Video Content

Driven by smartphone penetration, the rapid consumption of content online and confirmed by Josh Black, CEO, Asia Pacific, GroupM Content, video content is set to continue growing in 2016.

Brands are catching up fast, with examples like Visa, who used video content hosted on their Tumblr hub – VisaAPNews – to influence decision makers.

Or, how Unilever’s brand, Kissan, leveraged video to drive engagement and traffic to their website.

In a report by regional media consultancy, Media Partners Asia, the value of the online video sector in Asia Pacific is set to swell from an estimated $13 billion (US) this year to $35 billion by 2021.

The growth of broadband, combined with a slow but progressive change in content licensing is driving demand for online video services. However, the distribution of local content online is modest, especially outside of China, India, and Korea.

In fact, Managing Director of Asia-Pacific at Unruly, Phil Townend has said branded video content has almost doubled from around 20,000 branded videos to over 35,000 branded videos over the past year across Southeast Asia.